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SPECIAL INVITATION TO YOU CULTURAL, MUSIC, and ARTISTS
ABOUT TODAY'S SOCIAL-CULTURAL CRISIS
More so than any other " Cultural Genres of Music and Art", the African-American/ Black experience and its "Field Chants/Songs, Folk Music, Spiritual/Gospel, Blues, Swing, Rock n Roll, Soul, Jazz, BE BOP, Freedom/Movement Music, Hip Hop and forever evolving forms, addressed as well as reflect the misery of Black/African American life under capitalism. America's inherent white supremacist, "profits before people" exploitation oppression, and sexual misogyny are still central to this country's capitalist culture!
Historically, we as conscious community/people activists, cultural workers, artists, producers, and radical institution builders/entrepreneurs have made determined conscious invaluable contributions to unearthing, learning, revitalizing, and rebuilding this tradition of radical roots.
Our people and class deserve to know, study, analyze and understand how we must apply these lessons of our radical cultural arts and music roots to this present moment of moral, social, and political crisis to teach, inspire, and engage others in building a better community, society, and world that we so rightfully deserve!
Only we conscious cultural worker activists, artists, musicians, producers, institution builders, conscious radical entrepreneurs, and our allies can help break through the deepening present moral, spiritual, social, political, and economic crisis of the present rising storms.
How do we begin to unite the conscious few of us to begin to plan how to impact our community, people, and class? How do we birth a new "Harlem Renaissance" (1920s, '30s, '40s) or a new "B.A.M." (Black Arts Movement in the 1960s and '70s)? What valuable lessons can we learn TODAY from our collective studies and discussions of these monumental and critically important "social /political/cultural movements of our people?
ARE YOU INTERESTED IN JOINING US IN INVESTIGATING, LEARNING, AND UNITING ON HOW TO ADDRESS THE ABOVE CHALLENGE?
PLEASE EMAIL OR CALL the FRUIT OF LABOR WORLD CULTURAL CENTER!
WE DESERVE A BETTER COMMUNITY, SOCIETY & WORLD...IT'S UP TO ALL OF US...THE CONSCIOUS WOKE
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September 2022 Calendar
3rd, Saturday; 10:00-11:00 AM
Free Outdoor Community Self-Defense Class; presented by FOLWCC & Pitbull Martial Arts Center-USA. Free & Family friendly! All ages are welcome! Water and healthy snacks will be available. RSVP to Nathanette at (919) 876-7187 or nlmayo5@yahoo.com
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Southern Workers Power Program: In Focus [Webinar Series]
This collaborative program between Communiversity, an educational partner of Black Workers for Justice, and the Southern Workers Assembly is a series of nine webinars that will explore SWA’s Worker’s Power Program, centering the role and demands of workers as we speed toward the 2022 election cycle.
The primary objective of this series of programs is to explore SWA’s Worker’s Power Program as a viable platform for workers in the South to collectively build and consolidate worker’s power. As well as learn more about current and key sites of organizing across the South.
We will explore actions taken and their results; the historical context and connection of workers struggle to the Black liberation movement; ways to build strong political education on the key issues outlined in the nine-point program; and how it can aid in organizing and building a movement of workers to wage struggle against the accelerated destructive forces of capitalism.
We invite you to join us every Monday from September 5 to October 31, 7:00- 8:00 PM EST. Please note your registration will automatically register you for all nine webinars. Register here.
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Some think a movie about Emmett Till is unnecessary.
Here's why they're wrong.
www.msnbc.com
By Keisha N. Blain,
MSNBC Opinion Columnist
As conservatives work to eliminate classroom discussions of race that they say will make white children uncomfortable, a new film focused on Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, reminds us of the necessity of confronting the past — even the most painful aspects of it. For as long as racism and white supremacist violence operate as powerful forces in the U.S., and they obviously do, we will need films such as “Till” so we don’t lose sight of where we have been, where we are and where we need to go. Anyone paying attention to recent events in the U.S. — including the surge of hate crimes — knows the story of Emmett Till matters today.
Till was 14 years old in the summer of 1955 when he left Chicago by train to visit family in Money, Mississippi, where he later was lynched by a group of white men. His mother wouldn’t let the world look away from what happened to her son, and news of his murder became one of the catalysts for the civil rights movement. Davis Houck, the author of “Black Bodies in the River: Searching for Freedom Summer,” told me: “In order to understand America's racial past and present we have to understand Mississippi. And in order to understand Mississippi, we simply have to understand the Emmett Till case.”
We should expect the forthcoming film, directed by Chinonye Chukwu and co-written by Chukwu, Michael Reilly and Keith A. Beauchamp, to be a powerful indictment of the impact of white supremacist violence and its enduring legacy in the U.S.
Houck describes Beauchamp, who produced the 2005 documentary “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till,” as “the world's foremost Till expert,” and Beauchamp, who had a close relationship with Mamie Till Mobley and Till’s cousin Simeon Wright, told me his motivation for the movie project “came from my 28-year passion for getting justice for Emmett Louis Till and ensuring I fulfilled the promises I gave Mrs. Mamie Mobley and the late Simeon Wright before they passed away.” Read more here.
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Why Serena Williams Has the Greatest Career in Sports History
The 37-time Grand Slam champion’s accomplishments dwarf those of Tom Brady and LeBron James because of what she had to overcome.
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www.thenation.com
by Dave Zirin
As the clock turned to the year 2000, ESPN put out its rankings of the greatest athletes of the 20th century. The list was objectionable on several fronts: Babe Ruth ahead of Muhammad Ali? Secretariat—yes, the horse—ahead of Oscar Robertson? Ahead of Lawrence Taylor? But the worst part about the list was that it was a sausage fest. There were five women in the top 50, with Chris Evert squeaking in at number 50. Of the five, only two were Black women, the highest ranked being track-and-field legend Jackie Joyner-Kersee at 23. This arid landscape was the sports world that Serena Williams audaciously set out to rule.
In the year 2000, Serena Williams was a 19-year-old tennis prodigy still playing in the shadow of big sister Venus. The standard belief of almost everyone—save her father, Richard Williams—was that Serena would be Dom DiMaggio to Venus’s Joltin’ Joe: a quality career but always the familial afterthought. But Serena had already won the US Open at 17, and her confidence was running high. That momentum would last another 22 years. She now has the greatest career in the history of professional sports.
With Serena Williams set to retire after the forthcoming US Open, it is worth taking stock of the magnitude of what she has accomplished. When Serena Williams turned pro, Bill Clinton was in his first presidential term; the movie Toy Story was the number one box office hit of the year—and Serena was not much older than Toy Story’s target audience. It was 1995, and she was 14 years old. She made a whopping $250 in her first pro match against a terrific trivia answer by the name of Annie Miller. Now Serena’s career ends 27 years later with 23 Grand Slam singles titles and 14 doubles titles to her name. Her career is older than five-time Wimbledon champion Bjorn Borg was when he retired. Read more here.
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Bill Russell Was a Revolutionary
by Dave Zirin
William Felton Russell revolutionized basketball with a simple innovation: jumping. In an era when players were told to stay fastened to the ground when playing defense, he jumped. And when Bill Russell jumped, he blocked shots. He blocked so many shots—while averaging an astounding 22.5 rebounds a game—that even though the blocked shot was not a stat that was kept during his day, it is widely assumed that he is the all-time leader. Russell turned the blocked shot into an art form and played unselfish basketball en route to 11 championships and five MVPs in 13 years with the Boston Celtics. He also played a role in revolutionizing politics, and at this moment when the GOP is trying to roll back time—to in effect kill the reforms and memory of the Black freedom struggle—remembering his legacy is especially vital.
Russell flourished in a climate, both in Boston and around the country, that was relentlessly hostile toward him and his family because he was a famous Black man willing to speak his mind. Russell held a mirror up to this country. He once said, “We have got to make the white population uncomfortable because that is the only way to get their attention.”
He believed that the discomfort he caused among white Bostonians in particular counted as progress because they were far too comfortable with their own racism. Russell, of whom there is now a statue in front of the Celtics arena, was treated terribly during a career that spanned the core years of the Black freedom struggle. People broke into his home, scrawled racial epithets on the walls, and even defecated in his bed. He once told a story about his car breaking down in Boston in a thunderstorm and his being unable to flag down a ride but hearing people curse at him as they drove by. During the Russell dynasty, most Celtics games didn’t even sell out. That is why when his career was over, he said “I am a Celtic, not a Boston Celtic.” That is why he called Boston “a flea market of racism.” That is why he did not show up in 1972 when the team retired his number. But that is also why when he reconciled with the team in 1999, and the fans stood and cheered, it was more than just a basketball honor.
This was a special person, the kind of human being who would walk alongside Dr. Martin Luther King at the March on Washington but then declined to be on stage because he had no patience for celebrity culture and thought that if he stood at the front, he would be disrespecting those risking their lives to end American apartheid.
This quest to draw the good from this country by making the white majority uncomfortable was also seen in 1967 when Russell stood with Muhammad Ali, who was reviled for resisting the draft and refusing to fight in Vietnam. His solidarity led to one of my all-time favorite Russell quotes. A reporter asked him, “Are you concerned about Muhammad Ali?” Russell paused and responded, “I’m not worried about Muhammad Ali. He is better equipped than anyone I know to withstand the trials in store for him. What I’m worried about is the rest of us.”
He also famously would make autograph seekers uncomfortable, refusing—even when criticized for it—to be treated like a commodity or anything less than a full human being. I can say from experience that approaching Russell for an autograph was a mistake, but approaching him and sharing that you agreed with his political commitment? That would earn you a smile and maybe a friendly, infectious laugh.
Russell never stopped defending what was right. He took a knee in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick while wearing his Olympic gold medal, in a viral photo. In 2020, he spoke out in support of the NBA players who went on strike after the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., backing them with moral authority and helping force the NBA and then most of the professional sports to almost entirely shut down in protest of racialized police violence. He would introduce himself as a civil rights activist.
Russell was a giant in the truest sense: fearless in the face of injustice—and never cared that he made bigots uncomfortable.
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CAS 2022 Expressions: Enduring Truths for Challenging Times
A multi-generational program on Frederick Douglass Day in Poughkeepsie NY
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